The two Australian girls and their mother living in 'jail' at Villawood detention centre

Salwa Abas stands out in the busy school drop off: she is the only child escorted by a guard. Classmates tease the five-year-old for living in a "jail" and when she returns home, each pocket of her bag is searched.

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'I just want freedom'

Young mother Zahra Abas explains how living in Villawood detention centre affects her daughters.

Salwa and her sister Yasmin, 3, are Australian citizens. But they have been living with their mother behind locked gates at Sydney's Villawood detention centre for almost a year, after the federal government cancelled their mother's visa.

In doing so, the government acknowledged the decision was not in the children's best interests. Their mother Zahra, who is pregnant with her third child, has begged Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to intervene.

The case cast a spotlight on his family, and the Department of Immigration determined Ms Abas, who was 19 when arriving in Australia, had falsified information on her visa application, including the reason why she needed protection.

Ms Abas said this week her father was "abusive, controlling and angry" and told the family to lie to immigration officials about their names and background.

Villawood detainee Zahra Abas and her Australian children Salwa, 5, and Yasmin, 3.

Under the former Labor government, the department said while Ms Abas had breached her obligations under migration law, her visa would not be cancelled.

But in December last year when the Coalition was in office, then Immigration Minister Scott Morrison personally intervened to cancel Ms Abas' visa. She was informed on Christmas Eve.

In a letter to Ms Abas, the veracity of which the department did not dispute, Mr Morrison wrote that she had been living in Malaysia for many years, rather than in Iraq where she claimed to have suffered persecution, and should not have been granted a protection visa.

He said there was no evidence she was under duress from her father when applying for a visa.

"Notwithstanding that the best interests of the dependent children would be served by a decision not to cancel the mother's visa, this is outweighed by the seriousness of the non-compliance," Mr Morrison wrote.

Ms Abas was taken into detention in January, and lives in residential-style housing. Her Australian citizen husband suffers medical problems and depression after an accident and cannot care for the children, forcing them to live with their mother at Villawood indefinitely.

Ms Abas' husband visits the family in detention and she is 21 weeks pregnant. She is also severely depressed and fears for the future of her unborn baby and young daughters.

Salwa, once a bubbly child with many friends who loved the film Frozen, is now lonely and suffers nightmares. Yasmin has become unhappy and clingy.

"Every day [Salwa] says 'I had a really bad day, I hate this school, I hate you, I hate this place', and then she goes in her room and cries. She doesn't want to go out, she doesn't want to eat," Ms Abas said.

"It's like a jail - you have no freedom, no control over your life or your children's life."

Mr Dutton and the Department of Immigration refused to answer questions regarding Ms Abas, or explain why she was the only family member being detained. A spokeswoman for Mr Dutton said his department was "managing" the case.